Cancer is caused by a variety of factors, some of which are environmental and genetic risk factors. An example of a known environmental factor that causes lung cancer is the smoking of tobacco. Researchers have tried to understand the development of the disease better by delving more into extensive research.This research would in the long run help in finding a correct treatment regiment or treatment.

A group of researchers from Dartmouth College, led by Yafang Li (Ph.D.), set out to research to establish the relationship between gene-smoking interactions and the cause of cancer.

In their research, they found out that there are three single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), which refer to differences that may exist in our DNA, that determine how possible it is for one to get cancer. They concluded that these three were very crucial pointers when it comes to prevention and intervention of lung cancer. They can be used to gauge the risk that specific individual faces to be diagnosed with lung cancer as a result of smoking.

The researchers were very clear that there are challenges with the study of some aspects of SNP-smoking interaction because most of the current studies usually focus on other elements of the association between the two.

Fortunately, people like Eric Lefkofsky have come in to try and bridge this gap. Lefkofsky is an entrepreneur who has committed himself to do what is in his power as his contribution towards advancement in the field of cancer study.

In addition to the many companies, he has founded and co-founded, one of his companies that aids in cancer research study is Tempus. Tempus is a health-startup company whose aim is to make it possible to avail current technological resources to the study of cancer. It is meant to complement the medical professionals in the field by enabling them to make timely and informed decisions through advanced data mining of the data collected through tests. It digs into data to establish possible patterns and hidden information in the data, which improves the precision of the medication the doctors may give to the affected cancer patients.

Lefkofsky is currently the Chief Executive Officer of Tempus, and it is through this company that he hopes to achieve his life goal of causing the gradual decline of cancer, byte by byte. He holds that we have made many technological advancements so far and these should be able to make our medical examinations better and more precise.